


3 Steps to Create A Human Sherlock

by Breath4Soul



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Conditioning, Developing Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Doctor John Watson, Experimentation, First Kiss, Fluff, For Science!, Human Sherlock, Johnlock Fluff, M/M, Training sherlock
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-22
Updated: 2016-02-22
Packaged: 2018-05-22 12:54:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6080202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Breath4Soul/pseuds/Breath4Soul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><b>A fun little fluff piece wherein John tries some experimentation of his own to "condition" Sherlock into being "more human."</b><br/>_________________________</p><p>The idea had come to John as he hugged the porcelain of 221B Baker Street's loo. The perfect idea how to turn Sherlock Holmes back into a human being.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Pavlovian Conditioning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John decides in an experiment to help _condition_ Sherlock into liking affection.

The idea had come to John as he hugged the porcelain of 221B Baker Street's loo. The perfect idea how to turn Sherlock Holmes back into a human being.

He'd been desperate for a bite to eat while out tracking down leads on a case for Sherlock and so had stopped at a little Chinese restaurant for some takeaway. He'd never been to this place before and Sherlock would likely have told him that all the signs were there that this establishment was not dining at its finest. John couldn't recall what the state of the bottom third of the door was, or even what Sherlock said that meant, but the place had an unpleasant and slightly dingy interior, a flickering sign, and no customers....But he was famished and so had taken the gamble. 

_He had lost._

_Campylobacter jejuni_ or food poisoning.

"I am _never_ going to eat Chinese food again," John groaned as the pungent smell of vomit overlaying the sickly sweet of Orange Chicken burnt his nose. He was certain all his internal organs were slowly migrating up his esophagus. His head was swirling. He leaned back against the bath tub and looked up at the ceiling. 

It would be hard to even look at a Chinese restaurant for months after this, which was a shame. There was a great place just down the street that Sherlock and he sometimes frequented after a case, but even thinking of it made him have to grip the porcelain again. All he had left were dry heaves, but that didn't stop his body from trying. 

As a doctor, he knew this aversion was natural. Strongly associating Chinese food with unpleasantness was the body's way of protecting itself from similarly unpleasant experiences in the future. 

His mind wandered. He thought about Sherlock's aversion to all things emotional and he contemplated how his flatmate had been conditioned to associate emotions with negative consequences. He had a feeling Mycroft had something to do with that and that burned him. 

"Like the baby and the bloody rat," He muttered. Some years ago John had read a study about how they'd taken babies that had never met a rat before and startled them with a very loud and unpleasant noise when they first saw a rat. The babies then became terrified of all rats because they associated them with that frightening noise. Without that unpleasant stimulus during the first encounter with the rat the babies were curious, but not afraid. It was learned fear, but there are other things that can be condition beside fear.

He then recalled another study about conditioning: Pavlov's dogs. A scientist named Pavlov had rung a bell every time he fed some dogs. Soon he need only ring the bell and the dogs would salivate because he had repeatedly paired the positive experience of being fed with the sound of the bell. The bell made the dog anticipate the taste of food. 

Hot with fever and leaning against the cool, porcelain tub, this was the moment when John Watson decided to condition Sherlock Holmes back into being a human being. 

He determined that he would start with taking something the detective already associated with pleasure and associate it with physical affection. Thereby pleasure and affection would be inextricably bound.

If the experiment worked, the benefits of the pairing would be two fold: The new behavior would be tied to the positive emotions and, once conditioning was complete, the positive emotions would be evoked each time the new behavior was executed. The fact this gave the doctor a logical (Sherlock permissible) excuse to initiate physical contact with his brilliant companion was, of course, secondary.

However odd it was to be experimenting on his mad genius flatmate, he considered that if he kept it scientific and explained it in the end (or if it should go off track) then Sherlock wouldn't be able to argue. After all Sherlock had done loads of experiments on him. 

A day later, mostly recovered, he decided the parameters of his experiment. Ten seconds would be the maximum interval for the new stimulus. He would only attempt the new behavior when Sherlock demonstrated signs of an _'emotional high'._ He would give it up to six attempts, stopping and disclosing everything if Sherlock ever objected. If John hadn't successfully created a correlation between the new stimulus and the positive emotions by six attempts, he would stop the experiment and tell Sherlock what he'd been doing.

Two days later the first opportunity came as they stood in the sitting room of Bakers Street gazing at the wall of clues Sherlock had pieced together. Sherlock had an epiphany, suddenly resolving the case. He laid it all out for John and when he concluded and looked up at John with that effervescent smile that spoke of an _emotional high,_ John went for it.

"Brilliant!" John exclaimed. He took Sherlock's face in his hands and kissed him deeply for ten seconds. He then turned smartly on his heels and grabbed up his coat, heading for the door. Sherlock stood there speechless, blinking, his face fixed in confusion.

"Let's go tell Lestrade," John called back to Sherlock as he walked out the front door.

John felt Sherlock giving him sidelong looks in the taxi on the way to Scotland Yard. John said nothing. He looked out the window and tried not to smile too much. 

A day later as they stood over the body of a recently deceased Baroness Sherlock laid out in rapid fire for John and Lestrade all the deductions he made. As soon as Lestrade turned and trotted away John rounded on Sherlock.

"Amazing." John smiled at Sherlock. Then he pressed his lips to Sherlock's for ten seconds. When John released him, Sherlock looked around, dazed.

That evening they were on the rooftops chasing a suspect when John saw that expression of _emotional high_ on Sherlock's face again. 

"This is fun," John said and then pushed Sherlock against the chimney and kissed him. Ten seconds. Sherlock blinked rapidly, his eyes wide with confusion. He stood there a moment, fingers pressed to his lips. Then he joined John who had already resumed the chase.

The next day John finally got his confirmation that the correlation had been made. At the Baroness's home with Lestrade and the various suspects Sherlock laid out the suspects motives and the trail of evidence leading the consulting detective to his conclusion. As Lestrade slapped cuffs on the killer, Sherlock turned to look at John his eyes darting to John’s lips as he wet his own. John smiled.

_There it is. Pavlov's dogs salivating._

He waited until they were alone in the taxi before whispering "You're amazing." And giving Sherlock a kiss. 

Ten seconds. 

This time Sherlock was not surprised and he kissed back, which made John's rule of ten seconds _extremely_ difficult to adhere to.


	2. Instrumental Conditioning

All through dinner at Anthony's John would catch Sherlock gazing at his lips. His eyes would narrow, flitting back and forth as he tried to work it out. 

When they arrived back at Bakers Street John went straight for his bedroom. He needed to record his findings and plan his next move. He took a notepad from his side table, sat down on his bed and drew up a chart. He divided the first row into six columns which he labeled: 

> _
> 
> Old Behavior
> 
> New Behavior
> 
> Method
> 
> Max Attempts
> 
> Max Duration
> 
> Results.
> 
> _

He filled in the second row with 

>   
>  _Emotional high  
> _
> 
> Kissing
> 
> Pavlovian Conditioning
> 
> 6
> 
> 10 seconds
> 
> Success at 3!

The doctor leaned back on his bed and smiled. He could almost forgive Sherlock's experiments now that he understood the appeal. 

He knew the experiment would be more difficult going forward because of how well Sherlock concealed his emotions. The emotionally stilted man did not use very many words that expressed feelings, especially positive ones. He was also very practiced in concealing any facial expressions that might indicate his emotional state. 

He decided he'd have to take a different approach. He'd attempt to turn a negative behavior to a positive. He would reinforce his companions expression of feelings by using Sherlock's statement of a feeling as a trigger for a more positive experience.

He filled out the third row in the chart: 

>   
>  _"I'm bored,"  
> _
> 
> Dancing
> 
> Instrumental 
> 
> Conditioning
> 
> 4
> 
> 2 minutes.

He sat down his pad by the bed and leaned back grinning. 

Case just solved: this one wouldn't take long to test.

Around 10 am the next day as John lounged on the sofa reading the paper and Sherlock worked on his laptop at the desk, the detective leaned back and sighed "I'm bored." John sat down his paper, stood up and walked to the record player. He put on some jaunty classical music and stood in the middle of the room with his arms out in the way Sherlock had taught him was the 'proper way to hold a partner.' He looked at his flatmate expectantly. 

Sherlock slowly slid out of his seat, eyeing John suspiciously. He loved to dance, but he knew John was ambivalent about it. It had always taken a significant amount of goading to get the soldier to participate. 

Sherlock slid into his arms with a smile and they did the first waltz he had taught his friend. After two minutes John stepped back, did a little bow, something Sherlock had also taught him, and returned to the sofa. Sherlock stood there a moment longer frowning after him. He moved his computer to the other side of the desk so that he could see John over it. He spent the morning stealing narrow-eyed glances at his oddly behaving blogger. 

John wondered if he should revise the duration of the dancing. Dancing takes time and he didn't want Sherlock to resent so short a distraction. He ultimately decided he better be consistent and stick with his original parameters. 

Later that afternoon John was sitting in his chair by the fireplace sipping a cup of tea. Sherlock was at the kitchen table looking at some specimens with his microscope, his face pulled into a small frown. Sherlock suddenly opened his eyes wide and straightened up, leaning back from the microscope.

"I'm bored," Sherlock said slowly and turned to watch John who sat down his tea, walked to the record player and put on some music; a samba Sherlock had taught him a few weeks back. Sherlock smiled broadly. John knew that smile. _Emotional high:_ he'd cracked this code. Sherlock leapt up to join him. 

"Excellent." John smiled at him and met him with a ten second kiss. Then they danced. After two minutes, John bowed. 

Sherlock searched John's face. "Wait... I'm - I'm still _bored_." Sherlock's eyebrow quirked up in a questioning expression.

_Would that work?_

John laughed. Sherlock was certainly quick at unraveling puzzles. Now every time he wanted John to dance he was going to play the _'bored'_ card.

"Ok. Two more minutes."


	3. Reinforcement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock is far too clever for his own good. John's experiments are quickly becoming an exercise in frustration as the consulting detective tries to throw off the doctor's game.

Up in his room that evening John marked down the results. Success after 2 attempts. He sighed. To be honest, Sherlock had understood that correlation after one, the second time the scientific minded genius had evoked the trigger words to prove his theory. The doctor was going to have to up his game. 

He considered the predicament this placed him in. If his objective remained to reinforce Sherlock's voicing of genuine emotions, he couldn't respond to his attempts to control the situation by faking emotions. That meant when his companion said he was _bored_ but was not _actually bored_ John could not dance with him. Sherlock's _emotions_ , not his _brain_ had to be in the driver's seat here.

Now that the consulting detective was aware of the construct, John knew he would be trying to anticipate his next move. He'd be testing for new triggers and the doctor hadn't thought that far ahead. 

He decided he would _not_ set up new triggers. He would double down on enforcing _authenticity_ in the first two and wait for a _real emotion_ from Sherlock.  
____________________________________

The next day could have passed as a TV Melodrama. The amount of overt emotions Sherlock tried on in an attempt to find new triggers was amusing for John and infinitely frustrating for Sherlock.

Reading the paper in the morning: "This woman died without saying goodbye to her kids. That's _sad,_ John. I think _I'm sad_." Those sharp silver eyes fixed on John, waiting. 

"Mmhm." John smiled at his paper.

In the afternoon: "Mycroft called me. Wants me to help with a case. That makes me _angry_. I'm _angry_ , John." John looked up, studying his companion’s neutral countenance. _No genuine emotion._

"Mmhm." John went back to drinking his tea. Sherlock huffed and strode away.

That evening: Sitting at the kitchen table again gazing in his microscope Sherlock slammed his hand down on the table. _"I'm bored,"_ Sherlock grumbled angrily. John looked up from his computer.

"You're _frustrated_. There's a difference," John retorted patiently. He shut his computer and went upstairs to his bedroom.

__________

Sherlock watched John leave with irritation. He was right, the detective was _not bored_. Figuring out his flatmate’s little game was the best distraction he'd had in awhile. Especially since the rewards seemed to include _kissing John_ (not at all unpleasant - in fact, surprisingly _invigorating_ ) and dancing with John without the usual prerequisite of 20 minutes badgering and the ex-soldier in a foul mood for the first five minutes after he begrudgingly agreed. 

It was frustrating though, not to be able to figure out the other aspects of John's code. Surely he could outsmart John. 

Sherlock pulled out a piece of paper and jotted down what he knew. First column new behavior: _John kissed me._ 2nd column antecedents: _solved crime, deduced scene, chased bad guy, solved crime, cracked code._ The tall man leaned back in his chair making a contemplative sound in his throat. 

Four displays of _intellectual prowess,_ one of _physical._ Correspondingly, the kiss on the rooftop had been notably _more physical_. Was that significant? 

The detective made a little sound of approval at recalling John pinning him against the chimney. That was his favorite. Though the taxi where he'd nearly made his companion lose track of his time limit was a close second. The time limit must be significant. He made another column and jotted down _10 second limit_ in it. 

In the row below that he placed the other unusual behavior. _John initiated dancing._ He knew the antecedent there: _I said "Im bored."_ There was apparently a time limit on that as well, _2 minutes._

He moved back to the antecedent column to look for a pattern. What had John said immediately before each of the times he kissed him? _Brilliant. Amazing. This is fun. You're amazing. Excellent._ Not much of a pattern. Those were all praises his blogger had lavished on him before. So not a _word trigger._ Perhaps those were moments when John found him attractive? No, that didn't explain the boredom equals dancing behavior or the time limit. Definitely some kind of code.

He decided that even if he could not yet discern the intricacies of John's game he could at least disrupt his strategy; make it harder for the soldier to stay in control. 

He could do something about that time limit. Clearly John was only able to keep that time limit by keeping the kissing fairly polite. Sherlock went to the computer, pulled up YouTube and searched for videos on how to kiss.


End file.
